Perception Analyzer 9.0 Release Notes

Dialsmith is pleased to offer version 9.0 of the Perception Analyzer software for use with the Perception Analyzer interactive group polling system.

In this document:

  1. Software Installation or Upgrade
  2. Important Changes for Current Users
  3. Media-Edition Features
  4. Additional Changes
  5. Recommended High-Definition Display Equipment

 1) Software Installation or Upgrade

If installing or upgrading from a downloaded installation file, log in as an administrator* and run PASetup90.exe

 To install or upgrade to Perception Analyzer 9.0:

  1. Log in as a user with administrator permissions* with the computer connected to the internet.
  2. Uninstall any current installations of the Perception Analyzer software. For instructions on uninstalling software, see this Microsoft Support link.
  3. Browse to the computer’s downloads folder and locate the exe file. Right-click on the file and select “Run as Administrator.”
  4. On the Welcome screen, click “Install” to run the installation.
  5. Accept all installation defaults; if upgrading, it is recommended you allow installation of peripheral drivers and video codec software when prompted.
  6. Give administrator approval for installation of peripheral drivers and registry modifications.
  7. When prompted, enter the 28-character product key provided to you by Dialsmith.

*On Windows 7 Professional Edition computers, it may be necessary to activate the “built-in” administrator before installation:

  1. Log on as a user with administrator permissions.
  2. Uninstall any current installations of the Perception Analyzer software. For instructions on uninstalling software, see this Microsoft Support link.
  3. In the Windows Start Menu, right-click on “Computer” and select “Manage” in the
  4. pop-up menu.
  5. When Computer Management opens, Open “Local Users and Groups”, then open “Users.”
  6. Double-click on “Built-in account for administering the computer” to open the Administrator Properties.
  7. Uncheck “Account is disabled” and click OK. Exit Computer Management. Install the Perception Analyzer 9.0 software. It may be necessary to run the installation program manually. Browse to the computer’s downloads folder and run PASetup90.exe. Right click on the file and select “Run as Administrator.”

Important: For your computer’s security, create a password for this account and disable the account when finished with the software installation.

2) Important Changes for Current Users

New Hardware Setup and Test Utility

Several fundamental system setup functions have been consolidated into the new Hardware Setup and Test Utility available in the PALaunch dialog. The utility provides access to the former Hardware Setup Tutorial for dials and the console. It also provides installation options for video playback codecs. Finally, it provides access to the new External Displays Setup Utility (see below for details).

New External Displays Setup Utility

This new utility provides a single interface from which to step through the various tasks required when configuring a computer to provide external participant and results displays from Perception Analyzer. These include:

  • Installing drivers for the external USB display adapter.
  • Configuring the Windows desktop extensions on multiple external video monitors.
  • Setting the audio output device as the external USB display adapter.
  • Configuring the coordinates of the Perception Analyzer participant and results displays on the Windows desktop extensions using a new coordinate configuration tool.
  • Testing the external displays and video playback.

When combined with a new recommended USB display adapter and HDMI EDID emulators, the external displays setup process is much easier. This utility may also be accessed from the three main PA applications: Edit, Collect and Report.

Software Activation

Starting with version 9.0, users must enter a product key to activate the installation of Perception Analyzer on a particular computer. System owners will have a set number of computers that may be simultaneously activated, with the option to add more activations if necessary. See the User Guide for detailed information on management of license activations.

3) PA 9.0 Media Features

Starting with version 9.0, optional features are available to make working with media in Perception Analyzer easier. Except when respondents evaluate a live presentation like a broadcast or speech, an external overlay device is no longer required.

Internally-Generated Digital Video Overlay Display

If respondents evaluate digital video playback, the Collect and Report applications can create a results-display where the moment-moment moving-line graph is superimposed over the digital video. That display can appear either in the data display area of the main application window or full-screen on the external results display.

Export of Digital Video Overlay file

The PAReport application can export a digital video file of the moment-to-moment graph superimposed over the digital video playback.

4) Additional Changes

 ALL PROGRAMS

New Features

  • Control to show/hide individual-dials MtM display on external display.
  • Support for png-format files as display background graphics.

Functional Improvements

  • Compatible with high-resolution displays when using Windows 8, 10 and newer.
  • Improved configuration of K-Lite Codec Pack during the installation. The install available from within PA now properly installs video playback profiles and codec tweaks required by PA.
  • Improved reliability of video playback.

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE APPLICATIONS

Edit:

  • In the questionnaire text export function, choose to export participant OR results display text and remove item numbers.
  • If changes are made to a rotation they are no longer discarded if you switch to PAPreview mode.
  • Spell checking is now disabled at install. It can be re-enabled as usual from the Edit menu in PAEdit, or “Spell Check Project” may be used as-needed.
  • Labels may be added for scale histogram ranges.

Collect:

  • Collect no longer automatically reactivates deactivated dials when going back and forth to Edit when using the “Editor” shortcut in Collect’s Questions menu.
  • Enhanced dial performance when working with large dial systems in meetings.

Report:

  • Option for separate banner page for each subset selected.
  • Tool to synchronize start-points of digital video recordings of live presentations and the moment-to-moment polling data for those presentations.
  • Support for png graphic file export and wide-aspect graphs.
  • Export still-frames of video at annotation timepoints.
  • Customize line-color for annotations.
  • Improvements to allow annotation when data-shadowing to Report during data collection.
  • Improvements to selection of questions for printing and graph output.

5) Recommended High-Definition Display Equipment

To take advantage of the ability of Perception Analyzer to create a high-definition overlay display direct from the software, Dialsmith recommends upgrading your system’s audio-visual peripherals to HD. This includes a dual-output USB-to-HDMI display adapter, EDID emulators to allow consistent configuration of external displays and active HDMI cabling to deliver those display signals to modern flat-panel monitors.

Please contact Dialsmith Support for upgrade or peripheral pricing or any questions or assistance on upgrading your PA software.